Vanities

The Princess Diaries

Carrie Fisher, 50, has acted in 37 films and written four novels. Currently, she is starring in a one-woman show, Wishful Drinking, at Los Angeles’s Geffen Playhouse. Previously, our correspondent went up against her father, Eddie Fisher, and her mother, Debbie Reynolds—the first time has interviewed every member of a Hollywood family.

George Wayne: You are one of those rare creatures in that concrete jungle called Hollywood. You really have no enemies. Everyone—and I mean everyone—loves Carrie Fisher.

Carrie Fisher: Oh, not so fast. I don’t know who you’ve talked to. Certainly there are people who like me, but then there are those who don’t know me who gossip about me. You can’t believe the things I’ve heard.

Photograph by Karin Catt.

What’s one of the more outrageous rumors you’ve heard about yourself lately?

The most outrageous one of late is that I’ve slipped on heroin. The one great thing I did, in terms of living out here, is that I never found a heroin dealer.

Well, I am glad you brought up that subject. A friend of yours, a Republican operative by the name of R. Gregory Stevens, overdosed at your mansion.

This friend of mine had a very dangerous job. He ran presidential elections in very unstable countries, so for him to have died anywhere else was like Patton dying in a car accident. He did drugs. A lot of people were staying at my house, which is why he was sleeping with me. He came home around midnight, and he and I sat up and talked. He was very tired, and he then went to bed. When I got into bed, I put a pillow between us and I woke him up. We watched TV for a little bit. I was woken up in the morning by my friend Bruce Cohen because we were going to have tango lessons. I had planned to make soufflé that morning. And I went around the bed to wake up Greg and he was dead.

Oh my God!

And from the first moment I blamed myself. I thought I’d put the pillow on his face. I was in shock for months. I thought I had killed him because it had happened on my watch and I had failed to save him. They say his body was so worn out from drug use that if it hadn’t happened that night it would’ve happened on another one.

And you live in this legendary Beverly Hills mansion, built in the 1930s, where Bette Davis lived, and where also the famous costume designer Edith Head lived.

Bette Davis lived here. Robert Armstrong built it. He played the filmmaker in King Kong.

There must be so many ghosts roaming those grounds.

No … no, but we had Greg for a while. I was totally convinced, which kind of made me happy, because I kept thinking, Please don’t go.

What do you mean?

Lights would go on and off, and I had this toy machine, that when you touched it would say, “Fuck you! Eat shit! You’re an asshole!” And it would go off in the night, by itself, in my closet. I was a nut for a year, and in that year I took drugs again.

Did you have an exorcist come over and clear the air?

My friends did, and after that things were fine. But you know, he didn’t just die in his sleep; he died in mine. So it’s still not gone, and I don’t think it will ever be.

Well, now you’re back at center stage again, as it were, with what is probably your Act V, this one-woman show!

And I’m singing in it, too, which I haven’t done in 33 years. It’s an unauthorized autobiography.

It’s funny, your mother sat for an interview with me in 1997, your father in 1999. I’ll never forget going to meet your mother at the Essex House hotel and walking into her room, and she was steaming her clothes over an ironing board!

That must have been a blip. She lives next door to me, to my compound, which I call “Kennecuntport.”

And speaking of Kennecuntport, I found it very intriguing to learn that you had a very cute houseguest.

You mean James Blunt. Yes, he was here for about four months, and he ended up using my bathroom a lot because it has a piano in there and the acoustics are good.

And how did James Blunt pay the rent? I mean, he’s cute, sensitive, tall, and pale.

I will never tell, and I don’t know if I am that sort of landlady.

Oh please! If it was moi, I would be like, “All right, James, put down the lyric book and show me some bedroom judo.”

Yeah, like on your knees. No, I have a little more class than that. I am a very discreet human when it comes to other people. I don’t tell.

O.K., so something happened.

Absolutely not, but I did become his therapist. He was a soldier. This boy has seen awful stuff. Every time James hears fireworks or anything like that, his heart beats faster, and he gets “fight or flight.” You know, he comes from a long line of soldiers dating back to the 10th century. He would tell me these horrible stories. He was a captain, a reconnaissance soldier. I became James’s therapist. So it would have been unethical to sleep with my patient.

I would be remiss if I didn’t ask how you ended up in Star Wars.

I slept with some nerd. I hope it was George.

You weren’t sure?

No … I took too many drugs to remember.

And that famous metal swimsuit from the movie, do you own it?

No, but I will have to borrow it from George sometime when I am really depressed and I want to be even more depressed. I get along very well with George Lucas. He always comes to my birthday party. I also wear the wig from the movie in my show.

Your poor daughter, Billie … She is what, like 14 going on 24?

She’s got my mouth and she’s got my brains.

She should be best friends with Courtney Love’s daughter.

She is. They are friends. Courtney lived next door to us; Frances stayed over the other night.

After an 11-month marriage to Paul Simon, all he left you with was one of his acoustic guitars.

And nine songs written about me.

And Dan Aykroyd, with whom you got cold feet at the altar.

Yeah, because he would have cheated on me for years and years. But it would have been funny. And he’s adorable and we had a lovely whatever-the-hell-it-was. That was like a rebound from everything else.

And you’ve hinted that someone you like may move in with you.

And the funny thing is, since someone died here there have been more people living here than ever before. You kind of expect people to say, “So where did it happen?” No one has ever done that.

And what does your Dr. Feelgood have you on these days to keep your bipolar disorder at bay?

Oh, man, name it. I take Tegretol, Seroquel, Lamictal, Topamax.

But no Percocet.

No, darling, that’s the bad news.

How many pills a day?

About seven.

I guess that’s not bad.

Talk to my liver about that.

Is there a day that you can go without taking any pills?

No, I am a mental diabetic.

Well, as you have said in the past, “Instant gratification takes too long.”

That’s right.

And your new show is at the Geffen Playhouse. You and David Geffen are friends, and I know you don’t like to talk about other people, but I am asking: Is it true, as the blogs say, that he is dating actor Seann William Scott?

I don’t know, but I would doubt it. That’s just the same as saying he married Keanu Reeves when they had never even met. I was actually with David at the Geffen when he ran into Keanu. He said to Keanu, “Was it as good for you as it was for me?” They had never even met, and all that stuff had come out about them being married.